


Making Spirits Bright

by Demon Dreams (ScribeAzari)



Series: Lost and Found [5]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Christmas Special, Sort Of, pre-game, tags will update as the fic does
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23838964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeAzari/pseuds/Demon%20Dreams
Summary: Although time in the ruined studio is a fickle beast indeed, things like festivities need not be bound by calendar rules - when Sammy finds an interesting stash of stuff in his foraging, the time to lift people's spirits arrives. Sure, there's no chance of snow, but what better way to bolster morale than with a bit of holiday cheer?
Relationships: Bendy & Boris (Bendy and the Ink Machine), Bendy & Sammy Lawrence, Bendy & The Projectionist (Bendy and the Ink Machine), Jack Fain & Sammy Lawrence, Sammy Lawrence & Norman Polk, Sammy Lawrence & The Band
Series: Lost and Found [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1249010
Comments: 10
Kudos: 18





	1. Discovery

Picking his way carefully between the shelves of unsold toys, Sammy did his best to remain quiet, rolling introduction globs at any puddle that looked as if it could yield a searcher. While he’d grown more confident and practised with his abilities since he’d first stumbled through the area, it was still better to avoid the angel’s notice if at all possible. Yes, he could inkstep now, but it was probably better to take precautions than to let himself become complacent. Okay, so maybe staying clear was probably even safer, but Sammy was keen to avoid being stuck in a rut of doing the same thing over and over without variation.

A routine was comforting, but variety kept the mind active - not to mention, there could be useful finds to be made in territory that usually picked scavengers clear instead of the other way around. Norman was spending some time with Bendy in the Archives anyway, so it was probably better that he found something to do. Spending time with them was, of course, generally something he enjoyed, but not so much when they were trying to refresh their mathematical skills. Maybe he ought to take the time to shore that up too sometime, but he just didn’t want to deal with the feeling of struggling with something he’d mastered years ago while people whose opinions mattered to him were there to see him flail. He’d probably get around to it at some point, but for now he’d rather take his chances with angel territory.

Shawn’s old workstation, when he came to it, was pretty much as he’d expected - stained and abandoned. He didn’t really remember what the man looked like, but he recalled a sense of mischief, an impression that he’d been one to watch when the beginning of April rolled around. “What happened to you…?” He wondered softly, trailing fingertips across the old wooden desk. Well, he couldn’t know for sure without encountering him, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Shawn had ended up as one of the searchers in the area. That wasn’t a fitting fate for anyone, really, but the thought of it happening to someone specific he could remember something about still stood out like a missing tooth.

Putting his thoughts aside from Shawn’s fate, Sammy began to poke and shimmy at everything he thought might open - he hadn’t come here to just get melancholy. Most of the things he tweaked didn’t really _do_ anything, but he _was_ able to find a couple of drawers built somehow into the wall - likely an example of the studio warping and smushing things into the wrong places. Inside, there were a few dolls of each of the main characters that had some flaw or another, like a demon with a crooked smile, a wolf with his eyes far too close together, and an angel with her hands sewn on the wrong way around. Suspecting Shawn had kept them for sentimental reasons, Sammy left them in there as he lifted sheets of paper out from beneath them.

The papers seemed, on closer inspection, to be sewing patterns for seasonal dolls. A Boris-as-Rudolph lay among the sheets, in such company as an Easter Bunny Alice and a rather spooky and all too familiar variant of Bendy. Was _this_ where that creepy cutout with the weird eyes had come from? A Halloween promotion? It didn’t _quite_ seem to fit, but it _was_ a relief to think that there could be some explanation.

Sure enough, there were similarly eerie versions of the rest of the main cast when he checked, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to dwell on those. Instead, Sammy chose to refocus his attention onto the more brightly festive variations, wondering whether any of them had ever been made. There didn’t seem to be any finished holiday plushes in the drawers, but that wasn’t to say there weren’t any elsewhere, if there could be a Halloween cutout kicking around.

When was the last time he’d gotten to experience a holiday? His memories of them were dim, mashed together, and only here and there illuminated by notes he’d taken when memories were sharper. He remembered enough to know that they had been happier times, family times - and hell, even cartoons got to have Christmas Specials, didn’t they? Maybe sometimes other holidays too, but Christmas was the big cheese where festivities were concerned.

A melancholy longing stirred within him, and he found he now had a rather more defined goal than he’d set out with - he was going to bring Christmas to life for he and those around him. He had no idea if it was even the right time of year for that, but sod nitpicking - he certainly wasn’t about to forgo Christmas over a simple uncertainty like that. A thread of excitement glowed through his heart, stirring foggy memories of decorated houses - decorations! Someone as prone to showing off as he reckoned the two big egos of the old studio had been were bound to have left some decorations somewhere!

Closing up the drawers, he slipped through a wall to emerge somewhere deeper. Not into Bertrum’s room - he hadn’t been in there since his first encounter with the possessed ride, and he had no intention of changing that even knowing how to prevent himself from receiving a second smushing. He _could_ have asked Bertrum where to look, but not without an anxiety that would rather drag down his mood. Instead, he emerged in the haunted house ride’s ballroom to investigate the crates he vaguely recalled seeing there before. After all, they had to contain _something_ , right?

Prising open one of the creaky wooden objects - using his axe in place of a lever rather than hacking loudly, in case the angel might be listening - Sammy peered inside with keen interest. Eggs, bunnies and chicks - this wasn’t Christmas. It _was_ cute, though - he made a little note to himself to check this one out next time, chuckling as he booped the nose of a faded felt rabbit. What rabbits had to do with eggs, he wasn’t sure - he could sort of call to mind the idea that the Easter Bunny hid eggs, but not why. Did it lay the eggs? Shaking off the odd train of thought, he set the lid back onto the crate and set it aside, heaving another to check.

It took him a good few crates to find what he was looking for, but he recognised it by sight when he finally opened the right boxes. Banners bearing reindeer and a jolly fellow in a sleigh lay among odd spiky plant things and assorted baubles, empty ‘gift boxes’ that could be opened without disturbing the wrappings, and festive clothing. Sure there was no tree, but that could be solved by stacking the crates and throwing a tarp over it all. Then, it could be decorated freely.

A fizzing sense of glee took root in his stomach at the thought of how Bendy and Norman would react - he could already almost hear the squeak and burst of static, almost see the broadening grin and brightening light. Okay, so maybe they might want to include Jack, the band and the wolf, and maaaybe bring some holiday cheer to the lost as well, but it was Norman and Sammy he was most excited to share this with.

Gathering up the crates he’d found the Christmas things in, Sammy tried to inkstep back to his sanctuary. It was a slower, goopier process than usual, likely because of the rather unwieldy load he was carrying, and he wound up overbalancing and falling onto his rump. Still, he’d found something well worth the pratfall. With a grin beneath his mask, he popped one of the floppy, pom-pomed hats onto his head and began extracting and sorting the decorations, trying to work out where they should all go. He had plenty of tacks, so pinning things up wouldn’t be a problem.

When he began to set things out beyond the sanctuary, the band were quite understandably curious, some of them producing gloopy inquiring sounds as they gathered around him. They couldn’t see the decorations, but they could hear the unusual rustling and clacking, and that had captured their interest. Carefully hanging some bells and some of the clackier baubles within their reach, he explained as best he could. It felt bittersweetly warming to watch their faces light up at his words, to hear them garble excitedly around him. Fondly, he rolled them some globs of memory, so that they could see both what he dimly remembered and what he wasn’t trying to achieve. It wasn’t a way out, but morale was important too.


	2. Bouncing Ideas

With the help of the band, it didn’t actually take too long to adorn the music department with decorations aplenty, though he did have to stop them from handling too much of the tinsel when they started to get a bit too fixated on the interesting crinkly texture. At least that gave him an idea for what to put in stockings and present boxes, or else just wrapping if the other stuff ran out.

Though he was sure it would all look better if there were colours, or if the tinsel still sparkled, Sammy felt that all this Christmasing brightened the place up a treat. The band seemed to approve too, after he showed them what he could see, as did Jack. He wasn’t entirely sure when the goopy lyricist had emerged to join them (possibly through the toilet in Sammy’s sanctuary, judging by the inky trail left behind), but he certainly wasn’t going to turn him away.

Where to put an attempt at a tree remained an uncertainty, despite having a fair amount of things already set out. Somewhere up on his floor? Down among the lost? He felt he had something of a responsibility to share what joy he could with them, but a part of him clung to the thought of just he and those he was closest to cuddled comfortably next to a ‘tree’. Was that selfish of him? The lost had called him a prophet - they _believed_ in him… Clearly, he meant something to them…

He must have made some sort of sound amidst his conflicted feelings, as Jack oozed closer with a concerned querying gurgle, patting his leg. Taking this as a request, Sammy sat himself down on the ground beside his sticky friend and patting Jack’s shoulder. “I’m alright, don’t worry…” He sighed, grateful for Jack’s concern. “I’m just not as sure how to go about this as I thought.” Tilting his head, an action that caused a few stray drips of inky slime to drop free, Jack fixed him with an enquiring expression, gesturing for him to go on. No harm in that, Sammy supposed as he began to explain, hoping that his goop-laden friend wouldn’t think he was being foolish.

Jack listened with a patient sort of air, clearly considering what he was hearing. While both of them knew the change had wrought some quite significant changes to his mental state, neither made the mistake of thinking it made him stupid. Jack’s thoughts might have become harder to keep hold of, more scattered, but when expressed Sammy had frequently found them insightful. It didn’t take too long for the stickily chuckling searcher to offer up a blob of concept, his method of communication having the benefit of not _needing_ the right words to be found. When his fingers closed around it, Sammy found himself in a very simplified version of the music department, pared down to a cartoon level of detail - likely to save focus for where it was needed as much as because their perspectives had been radically altered. The background was laced with music, which sounded festive but was hard to make out - a faded memory worked into it?

The place seemed to have been decorated, though not in exactly the same way he’d managed, and Sammy could make out the figures of himself, Norman and Bendy sat leaning up against one another beneath one of those plant things he hadn’t been sure where to hang, feeding one another treats he couldn’t quite make out. It looked cosy, and he felt a sort of warm wistfulness tugging at him from within - he wanted this. Abruptly, the scene around him began to dissolve into floating cartoon clocks with fairy wings slowly whirling around him, ticking. It was incredibly disorienting, and had he remembered the existence of recreational substances besides alcohol, he might have suspected that such things might have played a part in this. However, neither his memory nor the studio contained such things.

Thankfully, the surreal swarm soon melted out into a new scene, a similarly toony rendition of the lost town. Not everything was in the right place, but it was a good effort for Jack not having been there himself, and the rubberhose lost and searchers looked a lot more cheerful than they did face to face. He, Norman and Bendy were here as well, dancing with the lost around what appeared to be a pile of presents while the less agile searchers drummed out a beat on barrels and crates.

By the time Sammy returned to the here and now, he was fairly sure he knew what Jack meant. “You make a good point…” He mused aloud, leaning back against the wall as he considered the thought. “We could have _two_ parties - that’ll need more preparation, but it’ll be worth it for the kick up the rear it’ll give morale. Thanks, Jack.” The lyricist grinned goopily at him, giving him a dripping thumbs up, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. The answer seemed so obvious now, but it had taken a friend to point out where he’d been overthinking it.

This was going to take some working out - a town would need rather more presents and dinner provisions than a more private occasion, after all. Maybe once he’d surprised Bendy and Norman with the idea of Christmas, he could plan out the parties with them? That could potentially be quite fun, handled right. They could pool their knowledge, work out what they’d need to make or scavenge - it could be like a game, something low stakes and light-hearted. Just what they needed. A smile beneath his mask, Sammy hauled himself to his feet. There was no need to try to set up anything further without them - what he already had around would be plenty to surprise them with and get them hooked on the idea. Therefore, now was the perfect time to drop in on the others to invite them back to see what he’d been up to.

Stepping into a wall, he focused his thoughts on the cosy, organised space they’d made of the archive they spent the most time in. He’d long since grown used to inkstepping, the sensation familiar and quite natural to him as he slipped through the swirling black and out into the warm-lit shelves. With a grin beneath his mask, he began to sneak up behind his friends, who were in the middle of debating something about imaginary numbers, far too engrossed in their discussion to notice him quietly stepping up behind them. That was, until he clapped his hands onto their shoulders with a jovial greeting. “How goes it, my lord, my light~?” He asked with cheerful fake pomp, not one to turn down the chance to be an alliteratively large ham to mess with them. His grin broadened as they squawked, Norman nearly falling out of his chair. Ohh, that just didn’t get old~

_“It was going alright, until just now - shouldn’t a prophet_ announce _their arrival?”_ Norman responded with playful petulance, folding his arms. Bendy somehow managed to pout for a few moments, before catching the giggles - which quite quickly spread to the other two. Sammy doubted they’d ever stop startling one another like this - it was just too funny for any of them to pass up, and it seemed to have become another one of the things that they shared.

“Maybe that’s just how I do it~” He laughed, while Norman lifted a hand to prod where a nose would have been on Sammy’s mask, accompanied by a tinny chuckle. “In any case, I didn’t come over here _just_ to spook you - I’ve got something to show you both!” Bendy tilted his head at this, emitting an intrigued croon as some of his curiosity brushed against the surface of Sammy’s mind. Norman was clearly interested as well, his posture straighter and his light a little brighter. “Come on, I’ll show you - the numbers can wait~!”

There was a moment’s pause, and he couldn’t resist the urge to strike a dramatic pose. His friends exchanged a glance, murmuring speculation he could only hear enough of to pick out the words ‘pom-pom’ and ‘hat’ as they got up to follow him back, their curiosity clearly piqued.


End file.
